A parent knows his or her child better than any committee. If a parent feels that it is inappropriate, then it likely is! So?....Instead of these matters being handled **privately** by **private** agreement between a parent and a **private** school teacher and principal, we have "committees" deciding what will be appropriate for the state's children.
Fundamentally, at its core government schools, the First Amendment and freedom of conscience are utterly incompatible.
The government must make a binary decision. It includes the book or excludes it. Regardless of the decision the government will trample the freedom of conscience of some of the parents and students, and likely the taxpayers who are under police threat to pay for it.
Exactly. Getting rid of government schools ought to be one of the top objectives of Constitutional conservatives, but instead we hardly hear a peep about it -- just stupid debates about what should or shouldn't be included in the government schools' curriculum. While I think there's good reason to ask taxpayers to pay for basic education for all children, to around the eighth grade level (lest we end up with hordes of adults who can't read or do basic arithmetic), there's no reason this should be done through government schools. The money should follow the child, and plenty of schools will open up to take the money and fill the need, and should also be available to homeschooling parents and other people who school a handful of children in their own homes. No doubt some of these schools will be sketchy, but it's unlikely that nearly as many children would end up in sketchy schools as currently in totally dysfunctional government schools where even the teachers can barely read or do basic arithmetic. Basic standards could be maintained by requiring annual testing of the very basics, non-controversial stuff like reading, math, and science (plenty in that last category that is non-controversial), and paying the money only *after* the children it's attached to have taken the test and shown a minimum level of progress from the previous year.
And there is *zero* reason for taxpayers to be paying for the huge array of sports, music, drama, etc that have become standard in public schools. These things are all fine and good, but they should be organized and funded voluntarily by private citizens working together, and by churches and other private organizations, and not be a built-in part of taxpayer-funded education.